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Complaints shelve water meters for now

The Town of South Bruce Peninsula plans to return to a flat rate water charge after being inundated with concerns over skyrocketing bills.

About 100 residents filled the council chamber Tuesday, many angry over water bills that shot up after the town started billing on metered rates last month.

Council passed a motion to bring forward a bylaw to rescind the metered water rates bylaw and return to the previous flat rate pending a review of water rates. The original motion had the change coming into effect June 19, but council was told later in the meeting by manager of financial services Tracey Neifer that the town's billing system was not set up to change from a metered rate to flat rate in the middle of a billing month. Council called a special meeting for Monday at 11 a.m. to rescind the bylaw with the intention to make the return to the flat rate effective June 1.

"I think the first step was accomplished today," said Coun. Janice Jackson, who brought the issue forward in a report to council on Tuesday. "To go back to [flat] rates was definitely something we needed to do to give immediate relief to the problem."

Most people expressing concerns about high water bills were from the Amabel-Sauble system, a group of small municipal systems with just over 300 users in areas such as Oliphant, Sauble Beach and Chesley Lake. The town also manages a large municipal system in Wiarton with more than 800 users. Jackson said she heard of one bill as high as $867.

"We just need to do something to resolve this problem," said Jackson. "When we first brought the water systems in and we first implemented the water meter program, we knew we would have to do some tweaking and I think when the bills came out in June for May it really stunned a lot of people and angered the community."

Jackson said the crux of the problem is that it is an expensive system to run with very few users on it.

"We have to as a council try to figure out how we can make this affordable to our residents and it is not going to be easy," said Jackson. "We have a very expensive system with very few users to share the cost."

At times during the meeting some of the residents had to be told to stop shouting. Councillors were cut off at times while trying to talk about the matter. Many in the crowd shouted out that they wanted the flat rate to be effective May 1, the date when the metered rates took effect.

Jackson said council will look into how it might make the flat rate effective May 1, once the metered rate bylaw is rescinded.

"I believe that we really need to go back with those rates retroactive to May 1," said Jackson.

Coun. Jim Turner was the only councillor to vote against the move to return to the flat rate. Turner pointed out in Neifer's report that about 190 properties on the Amabel-Sauble system actually saw their bill decrease for May, compared to 123 that saw their bill increase. In Wiarton 665 properties had lower bills in May, while 187 bills were higher.

"If the 120-odd here today where unhappy when the bills went up, what's going to happen if we tell people's whose bills went down that we are going to change it back," said Turner. "I would expect there would be an outpouring of something."

Jackson said she has heard of Wiarton property owners who have also received higher bills, but the majority are people in the Amabel-Sauble system.

"I had some people confront me today asking me to look into the Wiarton system too, so we will definitely have to do that," said Jackson. "Right now Sauble is the main focus because that's the most severe situation we face."

Linda Devine of Oliphant said her home property is on a private well, but they own another property in Oliphant that is on the Fiddlehead system. She said her bill increased from $166 for two months to $210 for one month and they have contemplated putting that property up for sale.

Devine said council made a fair decision on Tuesday.

"It takes a lot of pressure off the people who can't afford this water bill that just came out," she said. "It is going to give us some breathing space until they can find a fair way."

Marc Gove, who is from Brampton but has a cottage he someday hopes to retire to on the Foreman well at Chesley Lake, said his bill increased from $83.25 per month to $501 last month.

"The decision I am hoping for is to go back to where we were before," said Gove. "I'm still stuck with a $501 bill that is due on June 22."

Gove said he hasn't spent the whole month at the property. He said he had a week's holidays and they were part of a garden tour, but since the cost of water skyrocketed they have had to leave their flowers to die.

"Unfortunately the 600 flowers we planted on the May long weekend are mostly dead now," said Gove. "Because of the water bill we turned our sprinkler off."

Mayor John Close said it could be anything from people not realizing how high their water use is to minor leaks adding up why people received such high bills. There is also the fact that they small systems with very few people on them.

"I couldn't agree more if this province would let us defrag . . . our well system, I would be 100% behind that," said Close. Until they give us permission they are the ones calling the shots."

Close explained that defragmenting is a term the province uses which essentially means a system is broken up and users are put on their own private systems, such as a private well.

Close said he thought the town had put enough information out to people leading up to the launch of the metered system.

"People could come in here ahead of time and look what their readings were," said Close. "People got estimates as to what their bills would be."

Close said that perhaps because so many people on the Amabel-Sauble system are seasonal, they did not receive enough information on the new system.

"Certainly it appears like a lot of people were caught by surprise and we are going to have to reassess that," said Close. "We are going to have to really start crunching some numbers and try to communicate more that usage and leakage is a real issue and we've got to deal with those."